_Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores._
OVID.
Those inferior duties of life which the French call _les pet.i.tes morales_, or the smaller morals, are with us distinguished by the name of good manners or breeding. This I look upon, in the general notion of it, to be a sort of artificial good sense, adapted to the meanest capacities, and introduced to make mankind easy in their commerce with each other. Low and little understandings, without some rules of this kind, would be perpetually wandering into a thousand indecencies and irregularities in behavior; and in their ordinary conversation, fall into the same boisterous familiarities that one observeth amongst them when a debauch hath quite taken away the use of their reason. In other instances, it is odd to consider, that for want of common discretion, the very end of good breeding is wholly perverted; and civility, intended to make us easy, is employed in laying chains and fetters upon us, in debarring us of our wishes, and in crossing our most reasonable desires and inclinations. This abuse reigneth chiefly in the country, as I found to my vexation, when I was last there, in a visit I made to a neighbor about two miles from my cousin. As soon as I entered the parlor, they put me into the great chair that stood close by a huge fire, and kept me there by force, until I was almost stifled. Then a boy came in great hurry to pull off my boots, which I in vain opposed, urging that I must return soon after dinner. In the meantime, the good lady whispered her eldest daughter, and slipped a key into her hand. The girl returned instantly with a beer-gla.s.s half full of _aqua mirabilis_ and syrup of gillyflowers. I took as much as I had a mind for; but madam avowed I should drink it off--for she was sure it would do me good, after coming out of the cold air--and I was forced to obey; which absolutely took away my stomach. When dinner came in, I had a mind to sit at a distance from the fire; but they told me it was as much as my life was worth, and set me with my back just against it. Although my appet.i.te was quite gone, I resolved to force down as much as I could; and desired the leg of a pullet. "Indeed, Mr. Bickerstaff," says the lady, "you must eat a wing, to oblige me;" and so put a couple upon my plate. I was persecuted at this rate during the whole meal. As often as I called for small-beer, the master tipped the wink, and the servant brought me a brimmer of October. Some time after dinner, I ordered my cousin"s man, who came with me, to get ready the horses; but it was resolved I should not stir that night; and when I seemed pretty much bent upon going, they ordered the stable door to be locked; and the children hid my cloak and boots. The next question was, what I would have for supper. I said I never ate anything at night; but was at last, in my own defence, obliged to name the first thing that came into my head. After three hours spent chiefly in apologies for my entertainment, insinuating to me, "that this was the worst time of the year for provisions; that they were at a great distance from any market; that they were afraid I should be starved; and that they knew they kept me to my loss," the lady went, and left me to her husband--for they took special care I should never be alone. As soon as her back was turned, the little misses ran backward and forward every moment; and constantly as they came in, or went out, made a courtesy directly at me, which, in good manners, I was forced to return with a bow, and, "Your humble servant, pretty miss." Exactly at eight the mother came up, and discovered by the redness of her face that supper was not far off. It was twice as large as the dinner, and my persecution doubled in proportion. I desired, at my usual hour, to go to my repose, and was conducted to my chamber by the gentleman, his lady, and the whole train of children. They importuned me to drink something before I went to bed; and upon my refusing, at last left a bottle of _stingo_, as they called it, for fear I should wake and be thirsty in the night. I was forced in the morning to rise and dress myself in the dark, because they would not suffer my kinsman"s servant to disturb me at the hour I desired to be called. I was now resolved to break through all measures to get away; and after sitting down to a monstrous breakfast of cold beef, mutton, neats" tongues, venison-pasty, and stale-beer, took leave of the family.
But the gentleman would needs see me part of my way, and carry me a short-cut through his own grounds, which he told me would save half a mile"s riding. This last piece of civility had like to have cost me dear, being once or twice in danger of my neck, by leaping over his ditches, and at last forced to alight in the dirt; when my horse, having slipped his bridle, ran away, and took us up more than an hour to recover him again. It is evident that none of the absurdities I met with in this visit proceeded from an ill intention, but from a wrong judgment of complaisance, and a misapplication in the rules of it.
XVII. FROM THE "ESSAY ON MAN."[B]
ALEXANDER POPE.--1688-1744.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, All but the page prescrib"d, their present state; From brutes what men, from men what spirits know; Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas"d to the last, he crops the flowery food, And licks the hand just rais"d to shed his blood.
O blindness to the future! kindly given, That each may fill the circle mark"d by heaven; Who sees with equal eye, as G.o.d of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall, Atoms or systems into ruin hurl"d, And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar; Wait the great teacher Death; and G.o.d adore.
What future bliss he gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be, blest.
The soul, uneasy and confin"d from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor"d mind Sees G.o.d in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way; Yet simple nature to his hope has given, Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heaven; Some safer world in depth of woods embraced, Some happier island in the watery waste, Where slaves once more their native land behold, No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold.
To be, contents his natural desire; He asks no angel"s wing, no seraph"s fire; But thinks, admitted to that equal sky, His faithful dog shall bear him company.
What if the foot, ordain"d the dust to tread, Or hand, to toil, aspir"d to be the head?
What if the head, the eye, or ear repin"d To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim To be another, in this general frame; Just as absurd to mourn the tasks or pains The great directing Mind of All ordains.
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and G.o.d the soul; That changed through all, and yet in all the same, Great in the earth, as in the ethereal frame, Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees; Lives through all life, extends through all extent, Spreads undivided, operates unspent; Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart; As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, As the rapt seraph that adores and burns: To him no high, no low, no great, no small; He fills, he bounds, connects, and equals all.
All nature is but art unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And spite of pride, in erring reason"s spite, One truth is clear, _Whatever is, is right_.
Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Virtuous and vicious every man must be, Few in the extreme, but all in the degree: The rogue and fool by fits is fair and wise; And even the best by fits what they despise.
Behold the child, by Nature"s kindly law, Pleas"d with a rattle, tickled with a straw: Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight, A little louder, but as empty quite: Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage, And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age: Pleas"d with this bauble still, as that before, Till tired he sleeps, and life"s poor play is o"er.
Has G.o.d, thou fool! work"d solely for thy good Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy food?
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawn, For him as kindly spreads the flowery lawn.
Is it for thee the lark ascends and sings?
Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates his wings.
Is it for thee the linnet pours his throat?
Loves of his own and raptures swell the note.
The bounding steed you pompously bestride Shares with his lord the pleasure and the pride.
Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain?
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain.
Thine the full harvest of the golden year?
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer.
The hog, that ploughs not, nor obeys thy call, Lives on the labors of this lord of all.
Know, Nature"s children all divide her care; The fur that warms a monarch warm"d a bear.
While man exclaims, "See all things for my use!"
"See man for mine!" replies a pamper"d goose: And just as short of reason he must fall, Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.
For forms of government let fools contest; Whate"er is best administer"d is best: For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can"t be wrong whose life is in the right.
In faith and hope the world will disagree, But all mankind"s concern is charity: All must be false that thwart this one great end, And all of G.o.d that bless mankind or mend.
Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part, there all the honor lies.
Fortune in men has some small difference made, One flaunts in rags, one flutters in brocade; The cobbler ap.r.o.n"d, and the parson gown"d, The friar hooded, and the monarch crown"d.
"What differ more (you cry) than crown and cowl?"
I"ll tell you, friend, a wise man and a fool.
You"ll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunello.
Go! if your ancient but ign.o.ble blood Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood, Go! and pretend your family is young, Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can enn.o.ble sots, or slaves, or cowards?
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave, Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
Who n.o.ble ends by n.o.ble means obtains, Or failing, smiles in exile or in chains, Like good Aurelius let him reign, or bleed Like Socrates,--that man is great indeed.
An honest man"s the n.o.blest work of G.o.d.
Know then this truth (enough for man to know), "Virtue alone is happiness below."
... Never elated while one man"s oppress"d; Never dejected while another"s bless"d....[C]
See the sole bliss heaven could on all bestow!
Which who but feels can taste, but thinks can know: Yet poor with fortune, and with learning blind, The bad must miss, the good untaught will find: Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, But looks through nature up to nature"s G.o.d; Pursues that chain which links the immense design, Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine: Sees that no being any bliss can know, But touches some above and some below; Learns from this union of the rising whole, The first, last purpose of the human soul; And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, All end, in love of G.o.d and love of man.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] If the _Essay on Man_ were shivered into fragments, it would not lose its value: for it is precisely its details which const.i.tute its moral as well as literary beauties.--A. W. WARD, _quoted by_ MARK PATTISON.
[C] In these two lines, which, so far as I know, are the most complete, the most concise, and the most lofty expressions of moral temper existing in English words, Pope sums the law of n.o.ble life.
RUSKIN, _Lectures on Art_.
XVIII. RULE, BRITANNIA.
JAMES THOMSON.--1700-1748.
When Britain first, at Heaven"s command, Arose from out the azure main, This was the charter of the land, And guardian angels sang this strain: Rule, Britannia, rule the waves!